The origins of the universe

[QuantumT]

I am in that group and am not sure of anything I think I know outside of mathematics which is deductive so deals with what is definitively true
I reject nothing absolutely other than that that has been falsified and for everything else I am relatively open minded depending on what it is

The worst sceptics are in that group, but that does not mean everybody in that group are that
I'm always happy to meet open-minded people. Nice to meet you!

[Noax]

OK, so we are a very advanced computer simulation. How do you explain the origin of that?

We can only speculate. It's not the job of science to investigate the uninvestigatable. A different universe is not our territory. Human science starts with the big bang, stays in this universe, and ends with the death of the last scientist.

You said you had an elegant solution. Just adding a unexplainable creator layer is no more an elegant solution than all the other god-of-gaps solutions. There is a rule that such solutions are worth consideration if the containing layer is less complex than the contained layer (not smaller, but simpler). Explaining the origin of X by positing something more complex than X is less probable than X just existing on its own. You've simply made the problem worse by positing something even more complex, and then waiving off the increased improbability with "it is unknowable". The solution is anything but elegant.

[QuantumT]

You said you had an elegant solution. Just adding a unexplainable creator layer is no more an elegant solution than all the other god-of-gaps solutions. There is a rule that such solutions are worth consideration if the containing layer is less complex than the contained layer (not smaller, but simpler). Explaining the origin of X by positing something more complex than X is less probable than X just existing on its own. You've simply made the problem worse by positing something even more complex, and then waiving off the increased improbability with "it is unknowable". The solution is anything but elegant.

Well, that depends on your perspective.

A random out-of-nowhere universe in itself, with random chaos that leads to miraculous life, and pure luck for it to end like us, not elegant at all to me. It sounds crazy lucky. The elegance is gone totally. We exist by pure insane chance!

The elegance of a virtual universe in itself, where the parameters of life is set to begin with, and with a purpose (scientific? entertainment?) for our arrival is quite simple.

[Noax]

A random out-of-nowhere universe in itself, with random chaos that leads to miraculous life, and pure luck for it to end like us, not elegant at all to me. It sounds crazy lucky.

Heck, science has got further than that description. The 'luck' has been explained with chaotic inflation theory, which proposes a simplified 'container' rather than the one of significant greater complexity of your solution.

The elegance is gone totally. We exist by pure insane chance!

I never proposed anything like that, so complain to the one that proposes it. My solution is far simpler, but probably a little further outside the box than your comfort zone.

The elegance of a virtual universe in itself, where the parameters of life is set to begin with, and with a purpose (scientific? entertainment?) for our arrival is quite simple.

Your proposal is of a container that is even lower odds than our own.

The life parameters suck. Nobody has been able to reproduce it. If parameters were so optimal, it would spring up all over the place. Why simulate such a big data set if life is in such a tiny speck of it? I've been in virtual realities, and they all limit the universe to as little as can be managed to achieve whatever goal is set. There is a power issue as well. A real simulation (time is part of the simulated thing) has no power requirement and can proceed with whatever processing power is available.
A virtual reality on the other hand (simulated thing is contained by external time) has to keep up with the external 'experiencer' who would otherwise notice slowdowns or pauses, and would exhibit relativistic differences. Translation: A VR with relativity is necessarily solipsistic, or empirically falsifiable. If we are simulated (not the same as being a simulation), the simulation is a true simulation, a single-experiencer virtual reality, but not a multi-experiencer virtual reality.

[QuantumT]

So we have a different perception of elegance.